Ealing Studios Collection: Volume 1 1949 Blu-ray: Amazon.co.uk: Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Joan Greenwood, Dennis Price, Sidney James, Robert Hamer, Alexander Mackendrick, Charles Crichton: DVD & Blu-ray By Amazon Customer on 3 May 2014 Verified Purchase THE EALING STUDIOS COLLECTION VOL.1 [1949/1951/1951] [Blu-ray] A Hilarious Study of the Gentle Art of MURDER! The Men Who Broke the Bank – And Lost the Cargo! The Classic Ealing Comedy – Spotless Restored! Ealing Studios’ output from the 1940s and the 1950s helped define what was arguably the golden age for British cinema. This Blu-ray collection brings together three much loved comedy classics, directed by Ealing stalwarts Robert Hamer, Charles Crichton and Alexander Mackendrick, and starring the great Sir Alec Guinness in some of his most memorable roles.

FILM FACT: Kind Hearts and Coronets: This is listed in Time magazine's top 100 and also in the BFI [British Film Institute] Top 100 British films. In 2011 the film was digitally restored and re-released in selected British cinemas FILM FACT: Lavender Hill Mob: The title refers to Lavender Hill, a street in Battersea, a district of South London, in the postcode district SW11, near to Clapham Junction railway station. Audrey Hepburn makes an early film appearance in a small role as Chiquita near the start of the film. Robert Shaw also made his first film appearance, playing a police laboratory technician towards the end of the film. English actress Patricia Garwood made her first film appearance in this film at the age of nine. British 1960s children's television icon Valerie Singleton also had an uncredited part in the film. FILM FACT: The Man in the White Suit: It followed a common Ealing Studios theme of the "common man" against the Establishment. In this instance the hero falls foul of both trade unions and the wealthy mill owners who attempt to suppress his invention.

It was one of the most popular films of the year in Britain. Read more › Old Movies: The Ealing Comedies - YouTube Old Movies: The Ealing Comedies Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Apr 23, 2010 A review of a string of English comedies made by the Ealing studios. Covers 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' (1949), 'The Lavender Hill Mob' (1951), 'The Man in the White Suit' (1951), and 'The Ladykillers' (1955). WARNING: Includes extreme fanboy behavior. Category 100 Favorite British Films of the 20th Century The Third Man (1949), directed by Carol Reed After half a century, The Third Man remains a bona fide British classic: rich on atmosphere, strong on suspense and blessed with quite wonderful performances.

A true collaboration between director Carol Reed and screenwriter Graham Greene, it is the story of a simple American (Cotten) who arrives in post-war Vienna to meet his old friend Harry Lime (Welles, evil and extraordinary), only to learn that Lime has been killed in an accident. But, as he unravels the truth, he is also drawn into the decadent and corrupt world in which Lime existed. Beautifully shot by cinematographer Robert Krasker (who won an Oscar for his work), the film is full of sequences that linger in the mind, while the acclaimed zither rendition of 'The Harry Lime Theme' by Anton Karas helps to create a rare, haunting movie atmosphere. 2. Brief Encounter (1946), directed by David Lean A rightly celebrated tear-jerker which movingly recreates a little England on a northern railway platform (location: Carnforth, Lancashire). It shows that even the repressed British can display emotion (in a very understated manner, of course) when true love comes along.

David Lean directed this expansion of Noel Coward's one-act play Still Life; Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard are the respectable middle-class couple who fall deeply in love but ultimately agree not to meet again and to return to their real lives. They do so with such dignity and restraint that it makes their ultimate parting all the more moving. The atmospheric music is Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2. 3. Lawrence of Arabia (1962), directed by David Lean A truly epic film which won the Best Picture Oscar and BAFTA awards. Staggering in its scope, execution and impact, it remains a moving and memorable film-going experience. Director David Lean and screenwriters Robert Bolt and (originally uncredited) Michael Wilson combined to craft a story that seems to have two central characters - Lawrence himself (played with charismatic brilliance by 30 year-old Peter O'Toole) and the shifting desert so superbly photographed in glorious 70mm by Freddie Young. British eccentric T.E. Lawrence set about inspiring the Arabs to fight alongside the British against the Turks in the 1914-17 campaign.

The film is full of scenes and performances to treasure, though perhaps the best remembered is the arrival at the isolated well of Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) and the long shot of his ride across the shimmering sand. 4. The 39 Steps (1935), directed by Alfred Hitchcock One of the greatest Hitchcock films and by far the best of the three big-screen versions of John Buchan's romping adventure novel, written in 1915. The excellent Robert Donat is the innocent engineer caught up in a web of intrigue when a female spy is killed in his apartment. A wanted man, he escapes by train and eventually on foot into the Scottish Highlands, before returning to London to solve the mystery. Heightened sexual chemistry comes from the scenes of Donat handcuffed to the heroine (played with icy charm by Madeleine Carroll) and having to spend the night with her. Hitchcock directs with a sure sense of pace and wit, and is always ready to add that extra jolt to surprise audiences of the day. At the time he said: "I am out to give the public good, healthy, mental shake-ups". He succeeded. 5.

Great Expectations (1946), directed by David Lean A masterly adaptation of Dickens' much-loved story, which fluently blends excitement, suspense and emotion. The memorable opening sequence of young Pip meeting Magwitch in the graveyard brilliantly sets the film in motion, and director David Lean handles the transitions from fear to drama and on to comedy with extraordinary ease. The cast is superb - John Mills as the older Pip and Jean Simmons as the young Estella are both excellent, as are Martita Hunt as the crumbling Miss Havisham and Francis L. Sullivan (who played the same role in the 1934 Hollywood version) as the lawyer Jaggers. A deserved Oscar for the stunning camera-work of Guy Green and another for John Bryan and Wilfred Shingleton for Art Direction and Set Decoration. 6. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), directed by Robert Hamer A deliciously dark Ealing comedy that elegantly allows the audience to side with the killer as he sets about his task. Dennis Price plays the penniless young hero, ninth in line to inherit the D'Ascoyne dukedom, who systematically sets about murdering the eight in the way to his title.

The brilliant casting twist was that Alec Guinness played all eight - a general, a snob, a photographer, a suffragette, an admiral, a clergyman, a banker and the duke - with enjoyable ease. Also cast is the wonderful Joan Greenwood as the charmingly evil Sybilla. Robert Hamer directed, based on the book Israel Rank by Roy Horniman. 7. Kes (1969), directed by Ken Loach Ken Loach's engagingly unsentimental story of a working-class boy who manages to find a rare release from his drab life training and caring for a kestrel. Much-loved and well remembered, the film is regarded as a classic of its time, with Loach commenting poignantly on the lack of opportunities for the working classes. It is based on Barry Hines's novel A Kestrel for a Knave, and features cinematography by Chris Menges. Though the subject matter is serious, as usual with Loach there is plenty of room for humour and still to be cherished is Brian Glover's exuberant performance as the warped sports teacher. The film was shot on location in and around Barnsley. 8.

Don't Look Now (1973), directed by Nic Roeg Stunningly assembled by Nic Roeg, this remains one of the most disturbing of films, with the hint of terror lurking in almost every scene. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland are the parents whose drowned daughter may be sending them messages, leading them into the gothic labyrinthine of a deserted Venice. The Daphne du Maurier story may be the root of Don't Look Now, but the heart is the extraordinary ability of Roeg to create splintered visions, subliminal imagery and a pervasive sense of horror. It is still a film not for the faint-hearted. 9. The Red Shoes (1948), directed by Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger An extraordinarily imaginative film which has quietly established itself as a classic and has the ability to affect some viewers deeply. At its heart is a 14-minute ballet - also called The Red Shoes - based on a Hans Christian Andersen story of a wicked shoe-maker who makes slippers for a young woman who finds they won't let her stop dancing until she dies, exhausted.

This story is, of course, the basis for the film's larger backstage plot concerning the relationship between a megalomaniac impresario (Walbrook) and his young ballerina (Shearer). Beautifully presented by the team of Powell and Pressburger, with choreography by Robert Helpmann. 10. Trainspotting (1996), directed by Danny Boyle Dark, ironic and made with such style and power, Trainspotting arrived in cinema's centenary year as a much-needed push for British film. Brilliantly marketed and with a pulsating soundtrack, it put Scottish and British talent in the spotlight, and showed that the awful truth of drug-taking could be handled in a clever, witty but still disturbing way. The story concerns a loose band of young Scottish junkies who do their worst before heading down to London with a bag of money. The film is famous also for helping to launch the careers of Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller and others. Writer John Hodge won an Oscar for his adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel. 11.

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), directed by David Lean Under the single-minded leadership of their Colonel (Alec Guinness at his best as the officer driven slowly mad), British prisoners in a Japanese P.O.W. camp build the eponymous bridge that might eventually be used to assist Japanese troop movement. William Holden is the American officer who plans to destroy it. A film that plays just as well showing the psychological battle of wills as the more epic scenes of military conflict, it won seven Oscars, including one for screenplay (by Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, based on Pierre Boulle's novel). These writers, though, were blacklisted, so Boulle, who spoke no English, received the script credit. 12. If... (1968), directed by Lindsay Anderson Lindsay Anderson's much acclaimed film marked the beginning of an extended partnership with actor Malcolm McDowell and writer David Sherwin (they made two more films together, further tracing McDowell's character) and confused the establishment with its complex and often cruel expose of an English private school. Eventually a group of three students (led by McDowell) rebel and set about shooting teachers and fellow students from the roof of a school building. 13.

The Ladykillers (1955), directed by Alexander Mackendrick Priceless black comedy made at Ealing Studios. A bunch of hardened criminals hide out in a house near to London's St. Pancras station owned by a cheerful little old lady. Led by Alec Guinness (whose fiendish false teeth smack of master-criminal status), the gang's evil plans are constantly foiled by the old lady (played superbly by Katie Johnson) who is just too sweet to be true. Their bickering leads to violence and eventually wonderfully extravagant deaths. Peter Sellers is excellent as the chubby Teddy Boy, here in an early teaming with the equally nasty Herbert Lom (later Chief Inspector Dreyfuss to Sellers' Inspector Clouseau). 14. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), directed by Karel Reisz Much acclaimed by critics at the time, this early 'angry young man' drama was set in Nottingham and its hero is a factory worker, wonderfully played by Albert Finney.

Adapted by Alan Sillitoe from his novel, the film looks uncompromisingly at the life and frustrations of a working class man and the impact he has on the women in his life, played by Shirley Anne Field and Rachel Roberts. It may be grim stuff at times, but under Karel Reisz's direction it is refreshingly honest and at times moving. Music is provided by the jazz musician Johnny Dankworth. 15. Brighton Rock (1947), directed by John Boulting Fresh-faced young Richard Attenborough took a stark acting change of pace, here playing with chilling presence Pinkie Brown, the vicious teenage leader of a gang of slashers. Based on Graham Greene's 1938 novel (adapted by Greene and Terence Rattigan), this is an impressively made thriller from the Boulting brothers (Roy and John also co-produced the film), with fine performances too by Hermione Baddeley as the singer and Harcourt Williams as the lawyer. 16.

Get Carter (1971), directed by Mike Hodges Recently re-released by the BFI and long the subject of cult status, Mike Hodges' Get Carter is a tough and thoroughly compulsive crime thriller that delivers the gangland goods with great aplomb. Michael Caine is Jack Carter, the London-based villain returning to his native Newcastle to bury his brother, who sets about antagonizing the local gangsters until he finds out who was the killer. Caine is suave, sadistic and sexy, but then everyone here is pretty nasty. Playwright John Osborne appears as one of the camp Newcastle bosses, while the late Bryan Mosley (Coronation Street's Alf Roberts) also has a key role. 17. The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), directed by Charles Crichton Superb Ealing comedy, with Alec Guinness in great form as the innocuous civil servant who manages the impossible and steals three million in gold bullion from the Bank of England. That Guinness is perfect as the modest Everyman is what makes this film such a classic, but there are marvellous supporting performances too from Stanley Holloway, Sid James and Alfie Bass as his accomplices.

Watch for a young Audrey Hepburn as Chiquita in the opening sequences. T.E.B. Clarke's wonderful script won the Oscar for Best Story and Screenplay. 18. Henry V (1944), directed by Laurence Olivier Filmed during World War II and clearly aimed at boosting the confidence of the British, this is a remarkable film version of Shakespeare's play. It was Olivier's debut as a director and he brought passion, spectacle, humour and real poetry to the film, but is also outstanding as the passionate Plantagenet Henry who, at 27, defeated the armies of France at Agincourt. Among the impressive cast are Robert Newton as Ancient Pistol, George Robey as Falstaff and Harcourt Williams as Charles VI. Olivier received a Special Academy Award in 1946 for bringing this film to the screen. 19. Chariots of Fire (1981), directed by Hugh Hudson An absorbing, moving and much-acclaimed drama which in the early '80s looked like spearheading a British breakthrough in Hollywood. That didn't really happen, but Lord (David) Puttnam's production remains a remarkable achievement, tackling many issues under the umbrella of a true story.

Two men - a devout Scottish missionary Eric Liddell (Charleson) and a Jewish Cambridge student Harold Abrahams (Cross) - strain and train to run in the 1924 Olympics. The film debut of director Hugh Hudson, it won four Oscars (for Best Picture, Colin Welland's script, Milena Canonero's costumes and the score by Vangelis). 20. A Matter of Life and Death (1946), directed by Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger A quite perfect romantic fantasy from the team of Powell and Pressburger, which also gave David Niven one of the best roles of his career. He plays Peter, a World War II pilot who falls for an American radio operator (Hunter) as his plane is about to crash. But heaven makes a mistake and he survives, only to meet the girl in person and fall deeply in love. Now he must plead for his life at a celestial court. Handled with great compassion and intelligence by all involved. 21. The Long Good Friday (1980), directed by John Mackenzie A violent crime thriller, featuring a stunning performance by the then little-known Bob Hoskins as the brutal Harold Shand.

Vigorously directed by John Mackenzie from a screenplay by Barry Keeffe, the film follows Shand's attempts to woo a band of American entrepreneurs to London at the same time as gangland rivalry seems to be destroying his empire. Helen Mirren shines as Victoria, his sophisticated girlfriend, and look out for film debutant Pierce Brosnan as '1st Irishman'. This remains one of the very best British gangland movies. 22. The Servant (1963), directed by Joseph Losey Powerful drama from Joseph Losey, from a screenplay by Harold Pinter. Edward Fox is the rich but useless young man whose life is gradually taken over by his sinister manservant (Bogarde, in superb form) and his sexy sister (Miles). Often quite nasty, but glossily compulsive and fascinating to watch the transition of the two principal characters. 23.

Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994), directed by Mike Newell One of the great British comedies of the '90s (and one of the biggest hits, too, with worldwide box-office takings of $258 million), this remains a thoroughly enjoyable experience, full of fine performances, some wonderful settings and hilarious lines that linger in the memory. As perennial best man Charles (Grant) meets the woman of his dreams over a series of weddings, many of the best lines come from his mixed bag of friends (Scott-Thomas, Callow, Hannah, Coleman and Fleet), while Rowan Atkinson pops up to play the bumbling clergyman as only he can. Smoothly directed by Newell, though full credit should surely go to Richard Curtis for his superb script. 24. Whisky Galore! (1949), directed by Alexander Mackendrick Wonderful whimsy, charmingly directed by Mackendrick. On the fictional Scottish island of Todday, the wartime whisky ration has run out and the islanders are devastated. But when an American ship carrying 50,000 cases of Scotch is wrecked off-shore, they take it upon themselves to salvage and hide the booze.

Thoroughly enjoyable film, with terrific performances from the likes of Joan Greenwood, Basil Radford and Gordon Jackson. Compton Mackenzie, author of the novel on which the film is based, also has a small role as Captain Buncher. It was shot on location on the Hebridean island of Barra. 25. The Full Monty (1997), directed by Peter Cattaneo Hilarious contemporary comedy that managed that rare thing of being able to make you laugh while it also looked seriously at social issues. A group of out-of-work Sheffield steelworkers decide to become male strippers to try to make some much-needed money. The amusing dynamics of the group of men is perfect and the scenes of them rehearsing, or queuing in the DHSS office, remain fresh and funny. With a splendid script by Simon Beaufoy, the film established Robert Carlyle as a leading man and was a massive hit in the US as well as the UK, receiving four Oscar nominations and critical acclaim along the way.

"Kind Hearts and Coronets" - Alec Guinness at 100 - Pictures - CBS News Alec Guinness at 100 "The Man In the White Suit" A portrait of actor Alec Guinness (1914-2000), from his 1951 comedy, "The Man in the White Suit." On Friday, June 13, to celebrate the centenary of Guinness' birth, New York City's Film Forum will launch a retrospective of 30 films (several recently restored) from the actor's remarkable career. The retrospective, "Alec Guinness 100," will later play in Chicago, Silver Spring, Md., and Bryn Mawr, Pa.

Among the films featured are his collaborations with David Lean (including "Oliver Twist," "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Lawrence of Arabia"), comic gems from Ealing Studios, and the movie that defined him for a new generation, "Star Wars." By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan Credit: Ealing Studios "Great Expectations" Born in London on April 2, 1914, Alec Guinness de Cuffe never knew his father, a bank manager, who was not married to his mother. After her marriage to another man, Alec was sent off at a young age to boarding school. "I think I always was an actor from the age of five or six," Guinness told the BBC in 1973. "I was always in dormitories at school telling stories [and] acting them out." He studied briefly at the Royal Academy (making his first stage appearance at age 20), and later joined John Gielgud's theatre company. After appearing in a stage production of Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations," Guinness was contacted by director David Lean and producer Ronald Neame to appear in their 1946 film version, as Herbert Pocket (left).

Credit: Universal Pictures "Oliver Twist" Alec Guinness as Fagin, with John Howard Davies as Oliver, in David Lean's "Oliver Twist" (1948). Guinness said it was the only role he actively went after, winning it after being given a screen test by Lean. Credit: Rank Organization "Kind Hearts and Coronets" In the Ealing Studios comedy "Kind Hearts and Coronets" (1949), Alec Guinness played the Duke of D'Ascoyne and seven other members of the family - all of whom are targeted for murder by a poor relation eager to claim the family title for himself. Guinness said he was originally offered four parts in the movie, and told Roger Ebert in 1982 that he couldn't see the sense in playing only half the D'Ascoyne family: "I cabled them offering to play all eight. To my surprise, they accepted." Credit: Ealing Studios "Kind Hearts and Coronets" Alec Guinness as seven surviving members of the D'Ascoyne family. Though "Kind Hearts and Coronets" is today considered a comedy classic, it had at least one detractor. The real-life Bishop of Matabeleland, The Rt.

Rev William James Hughes, was "very aggrieved and indignant" and sought to have the film banned, according to a letter from his attorney sent to the film's producer in 1957. The letter stated that the murderous central character's claim to be the Bishop of Matabeleland had caused Rev. Hughes "extreme embarrassment." Credit: Ealing Studios "A Run For Your Money" Alec Guinness, with rugby ball, starred in the Ealing comedy "A Run for Your Money" (1949), playing a London columnist caught in the misadventures of two Welshmen visiting the city to collect a newspaper contest's prize money. Credit: Rialto "Last Holiday" In the 1950 comedy "Last Holiday," written by J.B. Priestley, Alec Guinness plays a man who decides to live it up at a fancy hotel after receiving a doctor's prognosis that he's only a few weeks to live. Credit: Rialto Pictures "The Mudlark" Alec Guinness played Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli opposite Irene Dunn's Queen Victoria in the historical drama, "The Mudlark" (1950).

Credit: 20th Century Fox "The Lavender Hill Mob" "The world is ours!" One of Ealing's most successful comedies, "The Lavender Hill Mob" (1951) starred Alec Guinness as a bank clerk who hatches a plot to steal gold bullion and smuggle it out of the country disguised as Eiffel Tower paperweights. Credit: Rialto Pictures "The Lavender Hill Mob" Alec Guinness (who received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor) and Stanley Holloway - before the complications ensue in their gold heist plot - in "The Lavender Hill Mob" (1951). Credit: Rialto Pictures "The Man in the White Suit" Another winning Ealing comedy was "The Man in the White Suit" (1951), in which Alec Guinness played a scientist who invents an indestructible fabric that resists dirt. His purported boon to mankind is less than welcomed by business interests, trade unions and washerwomen. The film earned an Oscar nomination for its screenplay. Credit: Rialto Pictures Family Photo In 1938 Alec Guinness married actress Merula Sylvia Salaman (with whom he appeared at the Old Vic).

They had one son, Matthew. Left: The Guinness family poses at an airport in London, December 27, 1951. Credit: AFP/Getty Images "The Promoter" In the 1952 comedy "The Promoter" (a.k.a. "The Card"), Alec Guinness played a social climber whose misadventures include romance with Glynis Johns. Credit: Universal Pictures Alec Guinness cavorted with Yvonne de Carlo in the 1953 comedy, "Captain's Paradise." Credit: Rialto Pictures "Malta Story" In this 1953 photo, actor Alec Guinness poses in flying kit at Pinewood Studios near London, for his starring part as an RAF pilot in "Malta Story." During World War II Guinness served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, commanding a landing craft as part of the invasion of Sicily. Credit: AFP/Getty Images "The Detective" "Looking for a black cat in a coal hole during an eclipse of the sun would be a child's task compared with mine." The 1954 comedy "The Detective" (a.k.a "Father Brown"), based on a G.K.

Chesterton character, starred Alec Guinness as a Catholic priest who matches wits with a nimble thief. Credit: Columbia PIctures "The Prisoner" A Soviet block interrogator (Jack Hawkins) tries to get a jailed cleric (Alec Guinness) to admit to treason in the 1955 drama, "The Prisoner." Credit: Columbia Pictures "The Ladykillers" Alexander Mackendrick's "The Ladykillers" (1955) starred Alec Guinness as Professor Marcus, leader of a band of thieves disguised as a band of classical musicians, who find themselves having to dispose of their aged landlady when she discovers their true identity. The delightfully dark comedy co-starred Cecil Parker and Herbert Lom (left), Danny Green and Peter Sellers; it won BAFTAs for its script and for Katie Johnson as the widow whose life hangs in the balance. Credit: Rialto "The Swan" Grace Kelly and Alec Guinness are a possible royal match in the 1956 film "The Swan." Kelly, who had met Prince Rainier of Monaco just prior to filming, would marry into Monaco royalty by the time "The Swan" was released.

Credit: MGM "The Bridge on the River Kwai" "What have I done?" Alec Guinness as Col. Nicholson, the by-the-book commander of British troops held in a Japanese POW camp in Southeast Asia, who oversees the construction of a railway bridge for the enemy in David Lean's incomparable war film, "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957). Credit: Columbia Pictures "The Bridge on the River Kwai" David Lean (left), with Alec Guinness and Sessue Hayakawa on the set of "The Bridge on the River Kwai." The film won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor (Guinness). Credit: Columbia Pictures "The Horse's Mouth" "Of course you want to be an artist. Everybody does, once. But they get over it, like measles and chicken pox." Alec Guinness received an Oscar nomination, not for acting, but for his screenplay of the 1959 film, "The Horse's Mouth," based on Joyce Cary's novel. Guinness' performance as the artist Gully Jimson was masterful.

Credit: Criterion Collection "The Scapegoat" Alec Guinness played a dual role - a British university professor and a French nobleman who cross paths, and switch lives - in the 1959 film of Daphne du Maurier's "The Scapegoat." Credit: MGM "Our Man in Havana" In "Our Man in Havana" (1959), from the Graham Greene novel, Alec Guinness is a vacuum cleaner salesman who plays British intelligence after being recruited to spy in pre-revolutionary Cuba. Credit: Columbia Pictures "Tunes of Glory" "We're on a first-name basis in this regiment. Your first name is Derek; my first name is Major." In "Tunes of Glory" (1960), Alec Guinness played a larger-than-life British officer who is to pass on the command of his Scottish regiment to John Mills. The producers originally wanted Guinness and Mills to play the opposing roles, but Guinness lobbied for the characters that ran counter to expectations.

Credit: United Artists "A Majority of One" In the love story "A Majority of One" (1961), based on the stage production by Leonard Spigelgass, Alec Guinness played a Japanese businessman courting Rosalind Russell. Credit: Warner Brothers "Damn the Defiant!" In 1962's "Damn the Defiant" (a.k.a. "HMS Defiant"), Alec Guinness played a ship commander facing mutiny and a clash of wills with his lieutenant (Dirk Bogarde) during the Napoleonic Wars. Credit: Columbia Pictures "Lawrence of Arabia" "I think you are another of these desert-loving English." In David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), Alec Guinness played the Arab Prince Faisal, who works in league with the British officer T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) in combating Turkish forces during the First World War. Omar Sharif (center) co-starred. Credit: Columbia PIctures "Lawrence of Arabia" Alec Guinness as Prince Faisal in "Lawrence of Arabia." Surprisingly, Guinness was not director David Lean's first choice for the role (Laurence Olivier was).

Credit: Columbia PIctures "The Fall of the Roman Empire" "Please don't bring me his head. I wouldn't know what to do with it." The Samuel Bronston spectacle "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964), directed by Anthony Mann, was a more-intelligent-than-usual epic featuring a cast that included Alec Guinness (as the emperor Marcus Aurelius), James Mason, Mel Ferrer and Rafael Luis Calvo, in addition to Sophia Loren, Stephen Boyd, Christopher Plummer and Omar Sharif. Credit: Paramount PIctures "Dylan" After two Broadway appearances in the 1940s and '50s - in Terence Rattigan's "Flare Path," and T.S. Eliot's "The Cocktail Party" - Alec Guinness starred with Kate Reid in "Dylan" (1964), about the poet Dylan Thomas. Guinness won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. Credit: Friedman-Abeles "Doctor Zhivago" In David Lean's epic "Doctor Zhivago" (1965), from the Boris Pasternack novel, Alec Guinness (pictured with Rita Tushingham) played a Soviet KGB officer.

Credit: MGM Alec Guinness and Gina Lollobrigida starred in the 1966 bedroom farce, "Hotel Paradiso." Credit: MGM "The Comedians" In "The Comedians" (1967), based on the Graham Greene novel, Alec Guinness played a businessman dealing in arms with the Haitian regime of "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Richard Burton co-starred. Credit: MGM "Cromwell" Guinness starred as the British monarch Charles I, who has a date with the executioner, in the historical drama "Cromwell" (1970). Credit: Columbia Pictures "Scrooge" Alec Guinness appeared as Marley's Ghost in the 1971 musical, "Scrooge," opposite Albert Finney's miserly Ebenezer Scrooge. Credit: National General Pictures "Hitler: The Last Ten Days" Alec Guinness portrayed Adolf Hitler in the final hours of the war, in "Hitler: The Last Ten Days" (1973). Credit: Paramount PIctures "Murder by Death" So, did the butler do it?

Alec Guinness played a blind butler in the Neil Simon spoof "Murder By Death" (1976), in which some of the biggest names in crime-solving (including Elsa Lancaster as Miss Marbles, Peter Sellers as Sidney Wang, and James Coco as Milo Perrier) try to unravel a murder mystery. Credit: Columbia PIctures "Star Wars" In 1977 Guinness told the BBC's Michael Parkinson that the script for "Star Wars" was delivered by George Lucas, "an up-and-coming, very respected young director. And then when I opened it and found it was science fiction, I thought, 'Oh, simply not for me.' "Then I started reading it and it seemed the dialogue was pretty ropey, but I had to go on turning the page. That's an essential in any script. "And I met him, and we got along very well, and I found myself doing it." Credit: 20th Century Fox/Lucasfilm "Star Wars" "You can't win, Darth.

If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." Alec Guinness added gravitas and a sly wink to "Star Wars" as the Jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, seen here in a light-saber duel to the death with Darth Vader. He earned his third acting Oscar nomination. Credit: 20th Century Fox/Lucasfilm "Star Wars" Despite appearing in the sequels "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi," Guinness grew less enamored with the "Star Wars" series as time went on. In his memoir, "A Positively Final Appearance," Guinness reflected on the saga at the time of the 1997 release of the Special Editions: I have no intention of revisiting any galaxy. I shrivel inside each time it's mentioned. Twenty years ago when the film was first shown, it had a freshness, also a sense of moral good and fun. Then I began to be uneasy at the influence it might be having. The bad penny first dropped in San Francisco when a sweet-faced boy of 12 told me proudly that he had seen 'Star Wars' over a hundred times. His elegant mother nodded with approval.

Looking into the boy's eyes I thought I detected little star-shells of madness beginning to form, and I guessed that one day they would explode. "I'd love you to do something for me," I said. "Oh, anything! Anything!" the boy said rapturously. "You won't like what I'll ask you to do." "Anything, sir, anything." "Well, do you think you can promise never to see 'Star Wars' again?" Credit: 20th Century Fox/Lucasfilm "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" In the 1979 BBC miniseries "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," Alec Guinness starred as John le Carre's George Smiley, a retired spymaster who is called upon to help finger a Soviet mole in the highest echelons of British intelligence. Guinness returned to the role in 1982 for "Smiley's People." Credit: BBC "Lovesick" In the comedy "Lovesick" (1983), Guinness appeared as the ghostly figure of Sigmund Freud a psychiatrist in need of a romantic intervention.

Credit: Warner Brothers "A Passage to India" Alec Guinness as Godbole, with Victor Banner and Judy Davis, in "A Passage to India" (1984), form the book by E.M. Forster. It was Guinness' sixth collaboration with director David Lean. Credit: Columbia Pictures "A Passage to India" Guinness had at first resisted playing the Hindu Brahmin, Professor Godbole. He and David Lean quarreled during shooting, and much of Guinness' performance ended up on the cutting-room floor. In a letter to Lean at the time of its release, Guinness described the film as "marvelously good and [I] do congratulate you most heartily. It is expansive, handsome, gripping and yet somehow intimate. . . . Also I think it is beautifully acted - with one excruciating exception. … "For my own part I'm afraid I thought I was sickeningly awful. I thought it was poor at the time we were doing it but I hadn't realized how wide of the mark I was. … "John Brabourne [the producer] was right in his original objection. Well, there it is and some of the press have rightly pointed it out.

One thing I am now grateful for is the disappearance of the song and dance - at least the agony isn't protracted." Credit: Columbia Pictures Little Dorrit" Among his final film appearances, Alec Guinness' performance as William Dorrit in the 1998 adaptation of Charles Dickens' "Little Dorrit" (released as a two-part film) earned him his fourth Oscar nomination for acting. Guinness also appeared in "A Handful of Dust" and Steven Soderbergh's "Kafka," as well as the TV productions "A Foreign Field" and "Interview Day." Guinness died on August 5, 2000 at Midhurst Hospital in Sussex, England, at age 86. Credit: Cannon Films "The Man in the White Suit" After running at New York's Film Forum, the retrospective "Alec Guinness 100" will be presented later this summer at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Springs, Md., and the Bryn Mawr Film Institute in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

For more info: Kind Hearts and Coronets - Digitally Restored 80 Years of Ealing Blu-ray 1949: Amazon.co.uk: Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Robert Hamer: DVD & Blu-ray Behind the Scenes Stills Gallery Excerpt from BECTU History Project interview with Douglas Slocombe Trailer From Amazon.co.uk Set in Victorian England, Robert Hamer's 1949 masterpiece Kind Hearts and Coronets remains the most gracefully mordant of Ealing Comedies. Dennis Price plays Louis D'Ascoyne, the would-be Duke of Chalfont whose Mother was spurned by her noble family for marrying an Italian singer for love. Louis resolves to murder the several of his relatives ahead of him in line for the Dukedom, all of whom are played by Alec Guinness, in order to avenge his Mother--for, as Louis observes, " revenge is a dish which people of taste prefer to eat cold". He gets away with it, only to be arraigned for the one murder of which he is innocent.

Guinness' virtuoso performances have been justly celebrated, ranging as they do from a youthful D'Ascoyne concealing his enthusiasm for public houses from his priggish wife ("she has views on such places") to a brace of doomed uncles and one aunt, ranging from the doddery to the peppery. Miles Malleson is a splendid doggerel-spouting hangman, while Valerie Hobson and Joan Greenwood take advantage of unusually strong female roles. But the great joy of Kind Hearts and Coronets is the way in which its appallingly black subject matter (considered beyond the pale by many critics at the time) is conveyed in such elegantly ironic turns of phrase by Dennis Price's narrator/anti-hero. Serial murder has never been conducted with such exquisite manners and discreet charm. --David Stubbs --This text refers to the DVD edition. Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1 This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder: Theater Review | Hollywood Reporter A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder: Theater Review 3:00 PM PST 11/17/2013 by David Rooney Joan Marcus Jefferson Mays and Bryce Pinkham in "A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder" The brilliant Jefferson Mays and a whole heap of mostly untried Broadway talent deliver the goods with this killer comedy. TWITTER Playing eight doomed aristocrats, Jefferson Mays steps into shoes worn by Alec Guinness in the screen classic "Kind Hearts and Coronets" in this new musical based on the same novel. While the source material credited for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder is Israel Rank, an Edwardian novel by Roy Horniman published in 1907, the show’s key inspiration lies in the film adapted from that book, Kind Hearts and Coronets. That wonderful 1949 Ealing Studios black comedy cast the incomparable Alec Guinness as eight English aristocrats standing in the way of a murderous commoner’s noble birthright. The virtuosic comic turn here belongs to Jefferson Mays, taking on dizzyingly quick changes of costume and characterization with hilarious aplomb.

But that’s by no means the sole enticement of this toothsome new musical. During previews, Broadway chatrooms have drawn facile comparison to The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the Tony-winning 1986 Rupert Holmes musical that was given a sparkling revival last season. While there’s some overlap in the pastiche score and vintage British music hall-style staging, Gentleman’s Guide is far superior, propelled by a rollicking story, humor of the most delectable amorality and the cleverest lyrics assembled in quite some time. Just hearing Mays as the ridiculously posh Lord Adalbert D’Ysquith scoff his way through “I Don’t Understand the Poor” (a wicked anthem for the one percent) is enough to restore an audience’s faith in musical comedy while getting them in the mood to off some toffs. The Broadway musical can often seem a hermetic art form, with the same handful of directors bringing their signature stamps to the majority of new projects. This is a case where a creative team of first-timers yields rewards across the board. That applies to the devilish book by Robert L.

Freedman; to Steven Lutvak’s tuneful songs; to the inventive direction of Darko Tresnjak, a seasoned veteran of the Off Broadway and regional trenches, graduating to theatrical primetime with honors. With its sumptuous design elements and versatile ensemble taking on multiple roles, this is a small-scale show that feels both intimate and lavish. The material clearly has benefited from the fine-tuning rigors of two pre-Broadway runs, at Hartford Stage and San Diego’s Old Globe. Heightening the artifice of the presentation, set designer Alexander Dodge creates an ornate proscenium draped in ruched curtains made of the bloodiest red velvet, with a promenade playing space down front behind the old-fashioned footlights. A prologue sets the arch tone as members of the company file on to warn the faint of heart, in song, to depart while there’s still time. “For God’s sake, go!” is their mock-urgent entreaty. Cut to the poky garret in Clapham, London, occupied by Monty Navarro (Bryce Pinkham).

Fresh from his mother’s funeral, Monty learns from her old friend Miss Shingle (Jane Carr) that his dear departed was disinherited from the aristocratic D’Ysquith family when she married his father, a Castilian musician. And while he learns that subsequent attempts by his mother to renew her noble blood ties were rebuffed, Monty discovers he is eighth in line of succession to become Earl of Highhurst, the D’Yysquith family seat. Monty’s girlfriend, Sibella (Lisa O’Hare), a vain beauty determined to marry not for love but for wealth, inadvertently plants an idea in his head: “As if you could ever be an Earl. Eight people would have to die for that to happen! How likely is that?” Very, it turns out, as Monty explains in the prison confessional letter he composes, which provides the story’s efficient framing device.

Too much description of the means by which the D’Ysquiths (pronounced DIE-skwith) meet their maker would spoil the merriment, which is heightened by the ingenuity of Mays, the chameleonic actor who won a Tony in 2004 for the multicharacter solo play I Am My Own Wife. It’s giving nothing away, however, to say that the homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is priceless. Among the most delicious of Mays’ glorious hambone characterizations are the Rev.

Lord Ezekial D’Ysquith, a drooling old cleric with a shocker of an overbite and a bad case of the Katharine Hepburn shakes; Asquith D’Ysquith Jr., a dandyish twit with a fondness for tarty showgirls; Lady Salome D’Ysquith Pomphrey, an untalented West End thespian chewing her way through Hedda Gabler; Henry D’Ysquith, a stammering closet-queen beekeeper who never lost his public schoolboy proclivities; and Lady Hyacinth D’Ysquith, a bosomy philanthropist so determined not to be outdone by a rival do-gooder that she’ll grasp at any cause du jour. Monty takes cunning advantage of that desperation by sending her off to the colonies in “Lady Hyacinth Abroad,” one of the show’s most riotous numbers, bursting with outrageously broad ethnic jokes and dance moves to match. (The fun choreography is by Peggy Hickey.) Tresnjak understands that half the amusement comes from celebrating a particular school of bad acting at its campiest.

The show embraces a full spectrum of moth-eaten British comic archetypes, not least of them the frightfully plummy Adelbert, togged out in upper-crust hunting gear and brandishing the unfortunate fox, his big number backed by the singing portraits of deceased forebears. Also unmistakably English is the musical’s judicious smattering of bawdy humor and double entendres. Some of the ripest of these are served up in Henry’s “Better With a Man,” a paean to the joys of masculine company that’s like one of Professor Higgins’ and Colonel Pickering’s My Fair Lady patter songs taken to its gayest extreme. That Lerner and Loewe classic is among the inspirations knowingly ransacked in Lutvak and Freedman’s songs, along with the wordplay-rich comic operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan and the droll sophistication of Noel Coward and Ivor Novello. The score also encompasses fluttering romance in numbers like Monty’s “Sibella” or “Inside Out,” which he sings with the lovely Phoebe (Lauren Worsham), a pure-of-heart D’Ysquith determined to make right the injustices wrought upon her disenfranchised cousin.

Inevitably, some of the helium escapes the balloon after intermission, when most of the D’Ysquiths separating Monty from earldom have been dispatched and Mays’ protean talents take a backseat. But not enough to seriously crimp the enjoyment. The second-act opener, a ditty called “Why Are All the D’Ysquiths Dying?” -- in which gossipy mourners roll their eyes at the attention-seeking ostentation of any family stacking up so many sudden deaths – is a finely crafted piece of Wildean wit. Another highlight is “I’ve Decided to Marry You,” in which Monty is farcically torn between sensuality (Sibella) and virtue (Phoebe). His trial and its surprise outcome are staged with crisp economy and an eye for humorous detail, and like the Ealing movie, the show’s slyest joke is that Monty is charged for a murder he didn’t actually commit. From the leads down through the multitasking chorus, this is a superb ensemble, vocally and in their facility for verbal and physical comedy.

Broadway newcomers O’Hare and Worsham are particularly welcome discoveries – crystalline sopranos with sharp comic instincts. And while the showiest work naturally goes to Mays, Pinkham’s invaluable anchoring presence cannot be overlooked, lending his dry understatement to pretty much every scene. The actor’s skill at retaining Monty’s malleable core of decency while steadily loosening the reins on his fiendishness makes him a flavorful antihero, and his robust tenor ranges effortlessly from aching sweetness to soaring power. Shaking off the pall of 2012’s woeful Ghost, Pinkham emerges here as a terrific musical-comedy leading man. The delicate orchestrations of regular Stephen Sondheim collaborator Jonathan Tunick and pristine vocal arrangements by Dianne Adams McDowell and Lutvak give the show full-bodied musical dimension. And Dodge’s playful set design is matched by Linda Cho’s equally smart period costumes. In an increasingly risk-averse Broadway landscape where more and more musicals come from mainstream-brand movies or hit song catalogues, this bright little jewel is a legitimate treat. Oh, and pay attention to the leading players’ bows for one final throwaway visual gag that sends the audience out laughing.

Venue: Walter Kerr Theatre, New York (runs indefinitely) Cast: Jefferson Mays, Bryce Pinkham, Lisa O’Hare, Lauren Worsham, Jane Carr, Joanna Glushak, Eddie Korbich, Jeff Kready, Jennifer Smith, Price Waldman, Catherine Walker Director: Darko Tresnjak Book: Robert L. Freedman, based on a novel by Roy Horniman Music: Steven Lutvak Lyrics: Robert L. Freedman, Steven Lutvak Set designer: Alexander Dodge Lighting designer: Philip S. Rosenberg Sound designer: Dan Moses Schreier Projection designer: Aaron Rhyne Music director: Paul Staroba Orchestrations: Jonathan Tunick Presented by Joey Parnes, S.D.

Wagner, John Johnson, 50 Church Street Productions, Joan Raffe & Jhett Tolentino, Jay Alix & Una Jackman, Kathleen Johnson, John Arthur Pinckard, Catherine Adler, Megan Savage, Shadowcatcher Entertainment, Ron Simons, Four Ladies & One Gent, Greg Nobile, Cricket CTM Media/Mano-Horn Productions, Joseph & Carson Gleberman/William Megevick, Dennis Grimaldi/Margot Astrachan, Ryan Hugh Mackey, Green State Productions, in association with Hartford Stage, Old Globe.

Question: In what 1949 classic English comedy from Ealing Studios does Alec Guinness play 8 roles?
Answer: Kind Hearts and Coronets